| Cambridge United | 1-1 | Brighton & Hove Albion |
| Wanless 14 | Reinelt 28 | |
| Att: 6,032 |
United line-up: Barrett, Matt Joseph (Ashbee 76), Wilson, Preece, Craddock, Raynor, Wanless, Hyde, Taylor, Kyd (Benjamin 73), Foster.
Sub not used: Williamson.
Ref: P Taylor (Cheshunt).
Fred Berry's match report:
Another match in which we totally outplayed the opposition but failed to capitalise on our chances. We started off smoothly and had a few half chances, Foster headed wide and Shaggy hit a shot against the oncoming goalie. Brighton saw a 25yrd effort go over and a couple of more long range attemps but never really troubled Barrett.
On around 14 mins we broke the deadlock, a Paul Raynor cross came to WANLESS who fired a shot from about 12 yrds into the bottom corner to silence the away contingent 1-0. After this we had most of the possession but failed to test the keeper. On around 30 mins a clearance down the wing found Brighton on a counter attack, their player got the ball on the right wing as another of their players stormed down the middle with, to his delight, no one bothering to pick him up. The cross came in and he was there to fire in from close range 1-1. The Seagulls fans went mad and started to get behind their team well. Shaggy nearly got us back into the lead when he turned a shot onto the post that the keeper just got his hand to. Just before half time Brighton nearly scored but a low cross hit their players heel and rolled into the hands of Barret.
The second half saw us again dominating play with one or two scares. Brighton went for it though and there were a few nervous moments. Nothing exciting happened in the first half of the second period. Some crosses were dealt with by the Brighton defence and Taylor had a good chance when a long ball found him in space but unfortunately he handled the ball before scoring after the ref blew his whistle. A mix up by the defence saw a Brighton player come too close for comfort, luckily his shot was inches wide. At the other end we won a free kick that was handballed by the wall, it was taken again and looked like it might go into the bottom corner until a player took the sting out of the shot as he stuck out his foot. Brighton saw a shot go just over, then another just wide and then one shot was pushed wide well by Barrett.
Fash came on for Kyd and again did well bustling his way through, he did a superb tackle on a Brighton player taking the ball with both feet. Unfortunately Joseph was injured and had to be stretchered off and replaced by Ashbee, we must pray his injury is not as serious as it looks or face a problem against Rochdale. In the closing mins we should of won it when a blunder found Hyde with the ball, his volley from 6 yrds went embarrasingly wide taking a small deflection from the keeper. That rounded off a match we again should of won.
RATINGS.
Barett 6 did what was asked of him.
Joseph 6.5 defended well made a mistake or two, lets hope he is not injured
out of the Rochdale game.
Wilson 7 Defended well.
Preece 6.5
Craddock 6.5 Scrapped well for the ball.
Raynor 7 Good crosses.
Wanless 7.5 Scored and battled well for the ball.
Hyde 6.5
Taylor 6. Tryed hard nearly scored but needs a rest.
Kyd 6.5 Showed strengh and pace.
Foster 8. *MOM* A threat in attack and won everything in defence.
SUBS
Benjamin 7.
Ashbee 6.5
Performance rating, 6/10
Gareth Challis' report and ratings:
The Seagulls brought 3,000 of the 6,032 attendance, making for a fine atmosphere. The U's fans countered the Brighton chants with the very predictable "You're going down to the Conference" - at least eight times in the half hour leading up to kick-off ! Not the most original of fans, are we ? The game started with the U's putting on most of the pressure, pressing Brighton back into their own half. The visitors seemed content with hoofing the ball forward to their strikers ... but why not ? It worked well thoughout the game.
United deservedly took the lead on 14 minutes when a Taylor header fell for Wanless who placed the ball past Omerod. After that, Brighton pushed forward and it wasn't a suprise when they equalized through Reinelt - a cross from the right was missed completely by a Brighton player, which seemed to take out the two U's defenders in the middle, leaving Reinelt to put the ball past Barrett.
From what I am told, the referee was the same one that did the games away at Fulham (lost 0-3) and home to Cardiff (lost 0-2) ... he seemed to have a touch of Gurnam Singh about him, awarding practically everything to the visitors. There was one incident in particular when a two-footed challenge on Wilson was not even given as a free-kick, and then less than 10 seconds later, a free-kick was given to Brighton for what appeared to be nothing than a 50-50 challenge neither player actually won. The standard of referee'ing in the third division is diabolical.
The most notable chances in the rest of the game (which the News of the World reported "belonged to Brighton") saw Taylor force a good save from Omerod, pushing the ball on to the post, Taylor also had a "goal" disallowed when he unluckily handballed whilst controlling on the edge of the area, and numerous Brighton "efforts" being blazed ten yards wide of all three pieces of woodwork. With just five minutes left, a Micah Hyde shot deflected off a defender and was looping over the 'keeper into the net until he just got a finger tip to the ball, pushing it over.
Still in with a chance, but results have to go our way (again).
Moment of the day for me came when queueing at the Ticket Office for the Fulham match. The queue stretched to the end of the car park (maybe a little further) ... while watching a huge stream of visiting fans walking up the side of the Habin to Newmarket Road singing loudly, a 12-year-old lad on a girlie purple push-bike shouts out "Come on then if you think you're hard enough" then bursts into a fit of giggles until he realises a couple of hundred U's and Brighton fans are all looking at him.
Ratings -
A game that both sides *had* to win, Brighton seeming to want it more than the U's. Overall, not a bad game, but there were spells when you wondered if either team knew how to score a goal.
Barrett 6 Joseph 6 Wilson 7 Preece 7 Craddock 7 *MoM* - No-one really stood out, so difficult to pick. Raynor 6 Wanless 6 Hyde 6 Taylor 7 Kyd 6 Foster 7 Subs - Ashbee 6 - on for the injured Joseph (75 mins) Benjamin 7 - on for Kyd (73 mins) - makes his presence felt !
Terry Wilby's match report:
We started off well, and took the lead when Shaggy headed down a cross to Paul Wanless who scored from around the edge of the area. After 20 minutes or so we rather lost the plot and allowed Brighton more into the game, and they scored the equaliser. A poor cross from Micah was headed away which allowed a quick break down our left, the cross was dummied by the first attacker and knocked in by the second. There were two defenders, but neither was marking close enough, Barrett had no chance. The best other chance came when Shaggy got the ball on the edge of their area, turned and shot but their 'keeper turned the ball onto the post and
away.
In the second half Micah had a couple of chances, the first was a deflected shot the keeper did well to save, the second when he was put through but put the ball past the post after beating the keeper. Shaggy managed to control the ball with his hand in a good position before shooting past the keeper, the referee saw the handball though. Midway through the second half Benjamin came on for Kyd, his running and enthusiasm caused the defenders problems. Matt Joseph was stretchered off with some kind of leg injury, and on came Ashbee.
As always we had a lot of possession, but could not make enough good scoring chances. There were times when Brighton had possession, but we had Raynor out on the other wing on his own. This is fine if we got the ball and played it to him, but this didn't happen, what it meant was that we were one short in the area where the play was.
No-one was really outstanding for us, Preece just gets my MoM over Foster. Wanless did his usual lot of running, Wilson, Joseph and Craddock were OK. Shaggy did OK in the first half, but little in the second, his touch seemed to be off as he often missed easy chances to control the ball, and was lucky not to be substituted. Raynor did not much, Micah even less! We didn't have the same will to win that Brighton showed, we were too slow supporting the front players who then lost possession. Benjamin made a bit of difference, I don't think he is strong enough yet to start a game though. Kyd and Taylor seem to play too far apart, so are unable to feed off each other. The referee was consistent in that in the first half everything went against us, in the second very much for us. There were lots of Brighton fans, but no trouble as far as I am aware.
If we are to do anything in our last 2 games we must develop a killer touch, and make more good scoring chances. We should beat Rochdale, who have nothing to play for, but I suspect we will need to beat Fulham as well, which will be very difficult, especially if they need the points for championship reasons.
Terry Wilby.
Many thanks to Fred Berry, Gareth Challis and Terry Wilby for their match report and ratings.
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More points allowed to slip away. When will we make life easy by not sitting back after taking a lead. We were unlucky not to score more, but then again we could have conceded more than 1.